J amaica Pond is where all the important events in my life happen,” said Isabel Janeff, a recent graduate of Boston University. “I went through a hard time last summer and the green spaces near my house helped me take a breath.” Janeff looked out over the placid water of the pond into the army of trees stretching to the top of her vision, taking her place in Boston’s rich park history.
Every Boston resident lives within a 10-minute walk of a public park according to a study done by non-profit The Trust for Public Land. This statistic reflects an untapped public health resource for Bostonians that’s right in their backyard. A study in the journal ScienceDirect said that research “Supported improving green space exposure in preventing depression and anxiety.” According to those in the field, improving or preserving green space should be regarded as a promising intervention for public health.
“Access to green space significantly increased mental health… because connected to mental health is the ability to exercise and be outdoors,” said Jodi Valenta, the Massachusetts State Program Director for Trust for Public Land.
“There’s that basic need to be connected to nature but there’s also the need to be connected to each other in the community.”
Jamaica Pond is just one of the green gems in Boston’s set of urban parks known as the Emerald Necklace. “It’s cool that I’ve been doing this same walk for two years, in good times and in bad times,” said Janeff, on the walk towards the pond.
Declan Battles is the marketing and communications manager at the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, a non-profit which conducts maintenance, youth education and volunteer programs for the parks’ 1,100 acres. His childhood passion for the outdoors sparked by growing up in a rural area of New Hampshire encouraged him to pursue a job promoting local parks. During his time at the conservancy it became clear that his ideals about the benefits of going outside align with the designer of the Emerald Necklace, Frederick Law Olmstead. Olmstead felt strongly that parks aren’t just a pretty place to go, but that they’re a community asset.
“There’s free, open space that anyone can be and not have to worry about paying an entry fee,” Battles said, “It’s a mental health asset.” He’s not the only one who feels connected to the intrinsic value found in one of Boston’s 837 public parks.
“I remember when I first moved to Boston and didn’t know anyone, I took a day to walk around the whole city and ended up getting some treats in Chinatown and walking through the whole [Rose Kennedy] Greenway,” said Christina “Stina” Li, a Portland, Oregon, native who lived in Boston for two years and spent a large deal of that time frequenting the Common, Charles River Esplanade, Greenway and the lesser-known Titus Sparrow Park in the South End.
"It was my first day in a whole new city. I had lived in Portland for my whole life up until this point, and I remember feeling like a tall child with crumbs all over my face and running through the fountains,” said Li.
However, access to these public green spaces isn’t always shared equally.
Battles said some barriers to accessing public green spaces have to do with the location and facilities available in the parks. “When you look at it broken down by acreage, a lot of that green space is not very equitably located,” Battles said. “[For] one thing, it’s lacking in amenities like public restrooms …Boston could definitely do better.”
Valenta said because of Boston’s unique level of park availability the focus of work being done by her team to improve park equity in the city must be shifted to the location, accessibility and quality of the parks. “There’s access across the city, but in communities that are underserved, there are still far fewer parks,” she said. “There’s so much more work to be done in these areas.”
A study done by the Trust for Public Land found that residents in low-income neighborhoods have 14% less park space than people in median-income neighborhoods and 19% less park space than people in high-income neighborhoods. And yes, Boston’s parks did get a poor 28% rating in terms of public restroom access. “One thing I’ve noticed is that there is a notable difference between the amount of and size of parks in low income neighborhoods versus high income neighborhoods, as well as how well they’re maintained,” said Li. “Neighborhoods tend to be racially stratified vis a vis gentrification and highlight Northeastern’s active colonization of historically Black neighborhoods. Which brings up the question, who is allowed to take up space at parks?”
